A Boston Technical Recruiters Blog

The Volere Requirements Process is a full lifecycle method for gathering project requirements.

Requirements Types
Functional requirements are the fundamental or essential subject matter of the product.

Nonfunctional requirements are the properties that the functions must have, such as performance and usability.

Project constraints are restrictions on the product due to the budget or the time available to build the product.

Design constraints impose restrictions on how the product must be designed.

Managing RFC’s(Request for Change). If you can’t lock in your stakeholders to some basic delivery guidlines you coudl be headed for a requirments gathering nightmare.

A detailed version of the Volere Process can be found here .

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I model my resume on the resumes of consultants I work with. But in general a resume should be clear and should give a manager glancing over it a good idea of your technical capabilities. I’ve seen managers raving about 1 page resumes, but I don’t agree that a 1 pager does justice to someone’s experience.

Furthermore, there is always a mixed review on cover letters, I don’t really pay attention to them since they don’t say anything to me. Your resume should spell out what, where, and how. Chances are that if you do not have something in your resume a cover letter will not save you from the trash pile.  I have also received quite a few resumes with the cover letter addressed to the wrong company. What do you think happens to that resume?

  Font’s should be conservative, Arial  10-12pt, single spaced, regular round bullets, no underlines, bold only the job title, company name and date, and the heading can be a little bigger.  Make sure your education is clearly marked on your resume. I noticed many Indian consultants do not put the school name; one consultant did not put that she went to IIT, a school comparable to MIT in the US and a huge advantage at certain firms. Place your most current education first, even it is not yet completed, unless you did not complete the degree at all. 

Use action words such as develop, lead, recruited, gathered, analyzed, managed.  Do not write prose “I was responsible for blab la bla… “ boring and slow. You want your resume to be crisp and sharp.

  Include your numbers! Especially if you do sales where numbers are important. 

Feel free to email me for any questions! Comments are welcome. You can take a look at my resume for an example.

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The unified modeling languege  is a standardized specification language for object modeling. UML is a general-purpose modeling language that includes a graphical notation used to create an abstract model of a system, referred to as a UML model. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language

While RUP is

The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is an iterative software development process framework created by the Rational Software Corporation, a division of IBM since 2003.

RUP is not a single concrete prescriptive process, but rather an adaptable process framework, intended to be tailored by the development organizations and software project teams that will select the elements of the process that are appropriate for their needs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Unified_Process

If your prospective BSA cannot explain to you the difference between these two core BSA concepts, reload your search…

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I came across an article by John Osher, the inventor of the electric toothbrush, where he discusses some common mistakes made by entrepreneurs. I’ve selected a couple of glaring mistakes and a link to his entire article. 

Mistake 8: Bringing in unnecessary partners. “There are certain partners you need. For instance, you often need money, so you’re going to need money partners. But too many times, the guy with the idea takes on all his friends as partners. Many people don’t provide strategic advantages and don’t warrant ownership. But they’re all going to get 25 percent of the company. It’s totally unnecessary, and it’s a mistake. Before people are made partners, they have to earn it.” 

Mistake 9: Hiring for convenience rather than skill requirements. “In my first business or two, I hired relatives. It was easy to do, but in many cases, they were the wrong people [for the job]. And it’s hard to fire people, especially if they’re relatives or friends. More time needs to be spent handpicking people based on skill requirements. You really need super-skilled people who can wear more than one hat. It just bogs you down when you hire people who can’t do the job.” 

Mistake 10: Neglecting to manage the entire company as a whole. “You see this happen all the time. They’ll spend half their time doing something that represents 5 percent of their business. You have to have a view of your whole company. But too often, the person running it loses that view. They get involved in a part, and they don’t manage the whole. Whether I do this product or that product, whether I hire somebody, [I consider] how they [will] fit long term and short term in the big picture. Constantly try to see your big picture.” 

http://cpd.ogi.edu/mst/capstone/17Mistakes.htm

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